Apparatus for treating soft or bituminous coal for the separation of slate therefrom.



W. S. AYRES. APPARATUS FOR TREATING SOFT 0R BITUMINOUS GOAL FOR THE SEPARATION OF SLATE THEREFROM.

- APPLICATION FILED APR.17, 191s.

Patented Feb. 10, 1914.

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W. S. AYRES. APPARATUS FOR TREATING SOFT 0R BITUMINOUS GOAL FOR THE SEPARATION OF SLATE THERBFROM. APPLIUATION FILED APR. 17, 1913.

1,086,502. Patented Feb. 10, 1914.

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UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

WALLACE SHAW AYRES, OF I-IAZLETON, PENNSYLVANIA.

APPARATUS FOR TREATING SOFT OR BITUMINOUS COAL FOR THE SEPARATION OF SLATE THEREFROM.

To aZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WALLAoE S. Arnns, a citizen of the United States, residing at Hazleton, in the county of Luzerne and State of Pennsylvania, have invented a new and useful Apparatus for Treating Soft or Bituminous Coal for the Separation of Slate Therefrom, of which the following is a specification.

This invention has reference to improvements in apparatus for treating soft or bituminous coal for the separation of slate therefrom, and its object is to provide means whereby soft or bituminous coal or other like substances may be treated in a manner to effect the separation of slate therefrom economically and efiiciently, the apparatus also being useful in connection with other substances for a similar purpose, and while the following description will for the sake of simplicity of expression be limited to the treatment of bituminous coal for the removal of slate, it will be understood that the use of the invention is not limited to any such specific purpose.

It is common to crush the entire run-ofmine product, including the combined or associated pieces of slate, or what remains of such slate after the purer lumps have been picked out, into fine material, which will pass through a screen of three-fourths of an inch mesh or less, and then separating the slate from the coal by a washer or jig, this resulting in a very great loss of coal and entailing a high cost of maintenance and a large outlay for a continuous and sufficient supply of water.

The present invent-ion provides an apparatus wherein no water is needed and the expense of a supply of Water is obviated. Furthermore, the coal is so treated that the slate is expeditiously and economically removed to an extent that the cleaned coal represents practically the whole value of the mined coal, while the slate is almost entirely removed.

Slate as found associated with coal is al most invariably harder and tougher than the coal and there is aheight from which a mass of slate and coal may be caused to fall at which the slate will not break, but the coal, being of a more friable nature, Will be disintegrated. Because of this characteristic the mixture of coal and slate may be lifted to a certain height and allowed to Patented Feb. 10,1914. Serial No. 761,821.

fall and this operation may be continued for a sufficient length of time until all the more friable part of the coal is disintegrated so that it will pass through a screen which may form part of the apparatus, thus separating the disintegrated coal from the slate and the harder lumps of coal which do not disintegrate under the conditions named. The percentage of coal which resist-s disintegration is not very large, but if lost would represent a material Waste. Such coal resists disintegration by the tumbling process referred to because of the presence of thin bands of silicious slate, which bands are sometimes as thin as paper and bind the layers of coal firmly together. Such lumps of coal resistant to the action of the disintegrator pass out of the latter with the slate, so that provision must be made for the recovery of this coal, and the apparatus of the present invention is so constructed that such resistant coal is treated in a manner which permits its recovery in a separator such as shown and described in Letters Patent No. 798,885, granted to me on August 29, 1905. Unless such resistant lumps of coal be treated in a manner to be described they cannot be recovered in any of the dry separating machines, all of which employ frictional difference as the principle of separation, because the bands of thin silicious slate protrude beyond the abraded bands of the more friable coal and present a slate contact with the frictional dry separator, in consequence of which a very large amount of coal goes outwith the slate. The disintegrator is constructed so that the more resistant or hard compact lumps of coal are caused to move in direct-ions which Will subject them to attrition and impact on all sides, thus reducing them from their natural angular form to a rounded form more or less closely approximating a sphere. It is in this ap proximately spherical form that the harder and more compact coal can be readily separated from the slate by means of the separator of the aforesaid patent, since the rounded pieces of coal will roll down the transverse inclination of the double inclined separating floors, while the unaltered flat or angular pieces of slate cling to the up wardly moving floor and are carried out of the forwardly rolling stream of coal, it be ing understood that the operations which cause the rounding of the lumps of coal into spherical or approximately spherical form have little or no appreciable effect upon the slate.

The invention will be best understood from a consideration of the following detailed description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings forming a part of this specification, with the further understanding that while the drawings show a practical embodiment of the invention the latter is not confined to any strict conformity with the showing of the drawings, but may be changed and modified so long as such changes and modifications mark no material departure from the salient features of the invention.

In the drawings :-F igure 1 is a longitudinal vertical section of a disintegrating drum embodying the present invention. Fig. 2 is an end elevation of the discharge end of the drum as viewed from the left hand end of Fig. 1. Fig. 3 is an elevation of the feed end of the drum as viewed from the right hand end of Fig. 1. Fig. 4: is a side elevation of the drum more or less schemati cally illustrated. Fig. 5 is a schematic plan view of a portion of the drum. Fig. 6 is section of a portion of one of the screen plates making up the body of the drum, on the line 6-6 of Fig. 5. Fig. 7 is a section on the line 77 of Fig. 5.

Referring to the drawings there is shown a drum 1 composed of longitudinal T bars 2 joined at suitable intervals by circular bands 3, which may be interior to the bars and within these bands are disposed sheets or plates each curved on an axis coinciding with the longitudinal axis of the drum and each of a circumferential extent less than the circumference of the drum, although this particular feature is not mandatory, but permits one edge 5 of each plate being turned toward the axis of generation of the plate to form a very mild baffle. At each end of the drum there is provided a circular track member 6 supported on rollers 7 mounted on and journaled in bed pieces 8 carried upon bearers 9 and the relation of the end supports of the drum is such that the axis of the drum has a slight declination from one end toward the other, the higher end constituting the feed end and is there provided with a feed cone 10, while the lower end constitutes the discharge end and is provided with a cylindrical discharge apron 11. At either end of the cylinder, and in the drawings shown as at the feed end, there is secured a sprocket wheel 12 de signed to be engaged by a sprocket drive chain, by means of which a rotativc move ment may be imparted to the cylinder 1 drum at a suitable speed.

The screen or screen plates 4L are shown in the drawings as three in number in circumferential extent, so that each plate embraces about one hundred and twenty degrees, although this particular feature is not obligatory. Each plate is formed at the ends and wherever else necessary with holes 13 for bolts or rivets 1% by means of which the plates 4 are made fast to the T bars 2 and rings 3. Each plate 4 is provided with numerous perforations 15 which may be square in outline, as shown, or of any other form and usually are about five-eighths of an inch in diameter, although some other relatively small size will answer. The plate 4 is indented toward the axis of rotation of the drum or axis of generationof the plate, and these indentations, indicated at 16, in Figs. 6 and 7 are arranged in circumferential se ries with respect to the axis of generation of the plate, so that on the inner face of the plate there are high points 17 producing intermediate valleys l8, and the high points of one circumferential series alternate with those of the next circumferential series in the direction of the axis of rotation of the drum or cylinder, as indicated at 1'7 in Fig. 5. Each indentation includes a plurality of perforations so that the indentations are relative large with respect to the perforations.

Let it be assumed that coal is fed, or is being fed into the feeding cone 1 0 and the drum or cylinder 1 is rotating at an appropriate speed. The coal which may be runof-mine coal with the intermixture of slate, except such of the purer lumps of the latter which have been previously picked out, will be elevated by the rising side of the drum and will slowly progress toward the discharge end of the drum due to the declina tion of the latter and any feeding action which may be due to the circumferential series of indentations, which latter may, if desired, be so produced as to have any pitch desired toward the discharge end of the drum or cylinder. The baffles 5 are not designed to lift the mass of coal and slate to any great extent, but are designed more particularly to agitate the mass of coal and slate as they move circumferentially with the cylinder or drum. However, the mass of coal and slate is lifted by the rising inner wall of the drum until the point of rest is passed, whereupon the action of gravity will cause the lumps of coal and slate to tumble down toward the lower part of the revolving drum, but instead of making a sheer drop the coal will cushion the pieces of slate and the more friable pieces of coal become disintegrated to an extent permitting them to pass through the perforations 5 of the screen, provision being made to pre vent the rise of the mass so high as to have any appreciable effect upon the slate, but high enough to act upon the more friable coal. The harder and more resistant pieces of coal are not thus broken up into small Bil particles, which will pass through the screen wall of the drum, but still are slowly reduced as to their sharp angles by impact and attrition until these sharp angles are rounded off. Moreover, the alternate elevations and depressions in the active inner face of the screen or inner wall of the drum causes the particles of coal to zigzag in their fall first one way and then the other, thus impart-ing to them a sort of compound rolling movement which will bring all parts of the lumps into engagement either with the inner wall of the screen or with other lumps of coal, or with lumps of slate until before these lumps have passed through the length of the drum they are worn into quite a close approach to spheres and therefore will quite easily roll. However, the slate being relatively much harder is not sensibly affected by this action and hence retains its fiat or angular form thus materially aiding in the subsequent treatment by a separating device such as disclosed in the aforesaid Lotters Patent. By the time the coal is passed through the length of the cylinder or drum all the more friable portions have become disintegrated and have escaped from the drum through the perforations while the slate and the rounded lumps of coal find their escape from the drum through the outlet apron 11. Such a mixture of angular slate and rounded coal is easily separated by the machine disclosed in the aforesaid Letters Patent or by similar machines, so that by the use of the machine of the pres ent invention all the more friable portion of the coal is separated from the slate and the slate and percentage of less friable coal discharged from the machine of the present invention is readily separated by existing separators which would be wasteful in their action were it not for the treatment of the coal by the machine of the present inven tion, causing the rounding or spherical formation of the lumps'of coal which ail to disintegrate while passing through the pres ent machine. The disintegration of the mere friable pieces of coal without disintegration or breaking up the slate is due to the lifting of the mass of coal and slate only tosuch a height as shall cause the down tumbling of the mass to break up the friable coal without affecting the slate, while the series of indentations in the wall of the drum or cylinder cause the down rolling lumps of less friable coal to bound hither and thither in a direction more or less lengthwise of the cylinder as they tumble down toward the central portion of the cylinder, thus bringing the angular portions of the coal which may exist into engagement with other pieces of coal and with the slate and with the walls of the cylinder until these angular portions are worn down by attrition and impact, thus permitting the lumps of coal to roll more freely and therefore to approach more and more the spherical form as they progress through the cylinder, so that by the time the discharge end of the cylinder is reached these lumps of coal are appreciably spherical, but the harder lumps of slate are so little affected that they still retain their angular form and in that condition are discharged from the cylinder or drum. The machine of the present invention is therefore both a disintegrator and a shaper so far as the coal is concerned, but the drum is purposely proportioned to prevent any such action upon the slate, wherefore the separation between the slate and the coal may be very nearly complete and the loss of coal be almost inappreciable, while the cleansed coal is markedly free from slate and to a marked degree in excess of coal treat-ed by other slate separating machines, and the amount of coal ultimately obtained represents nearly the entire value of coal originally introduced into the disintegrator of the present invention.

Since the relative proportions of the parts are quite material to the successful operation of the structure of the present invention and also to a full understanding of the present invention, it may be stated that for Pennsyl- Vania bituminous coal success may be ob tained by the use of a drum or cylinder of about twenty feet in length between the end rings 3, while the interior of the cylinder or drum may be about thirty inches and the drum may decline from the feed end toward the discharge end by about one-fourth of an inch per foot, while the high points on the inner wall of the cylinder lining or jacket may be about three inches apart in the circumferential direction and also in the direction of the length of the cylinder. The wavy form of the perforated jacket segments is a very vital feature not only in causing the disintegration of the coal and avoiding the breaking of the slate, but also in forming the harder pieces of coal into approximate spheres and the relatively small diam eter of the inner drum or cylinder is of importance in avoiding the lifting of the mass to too great an extent, so that the fall, as the mass tumbles down the rising side of the cylinder, shall only be sufiicient to cause disintegration of the more friable parts of the coal and the breaking off of the sharp angles of the harder lumps of coal to reduce such 5 lumps to spheres while the still harder slate is to all practical intents and purposes unaffected by its treatment.

The drum or cylinder 1 is rotated in the direction of the arrow of Fig. 2, and the mass of coal and slate will rise to approximately the point indicated in Fig. 2 at 19.

Fig. t is not intended to show any particular minute structure, but only the general proportions of the drum or cylinder about twenty feet in length exclusive of the feed and discharge ends and of about thirty inches internal diameter, wherefore no attempt has been made to show the external appearance of the plates or jacket constituting the body of the drum.

It is to be observed that the relatively small diameter of the drum in the absence of any material baflies avoids the lifting of the mixture of coal and slate to such a height that the pieces of coal and slate have a sheer drop which would cause irregular action and the unavoidable breakage of the slate. The present machine lifts the material by the revolution of the drum to a point where the angle of repose is slightly exceeded, whereupon the pieces of material tumble down over one another and by attrition and impact reduce the coal, but the impact is insuflicient to break the slate. As the harder pieces of coal are shaped into ball form they readily roll ahead of the pieces of slate and when the latter which are carried to the highest point of elevation of the material in the machine, descend their fall is arrested by the round pieces of coal causing a further disintegration of the coal and avoiding any sudden impact of the slate on the jacket itself. The forward decline of the cylinder or drum depends upon the length of time necessary t retain the hard pieces of coal in the machine in order to round them. It may vary from one-eighth of an inch per foot upward and as before stated a quarter of an inch to the foot is about right for Pennsylvania bituminous coal.

The proportions given are by way of example only, are not to be considered as confining the invention to such proportions, for it is evident that different qualities of coal will require somewhat different forms with a corresponding variation in the proportions of the structure, but in any event the proportions should be such that the slate is not broken or disintegrated while the coal is disintegrated so far as the more friable parts are concerned and the lumps are rounded so far as the harder or less friable portions of the coal are concerned.

The process of treating soft or bituminous coal and the like, herein set forth but not claimed, is described and claimed in application Serial No. 761,822, filed by me on April 17, 1913.

hat is claimed is 1. In an apparatus fortreating run-of-themine soft or bituminous coal, a rotatable drum having screen walls inwardly indented intervals to form a series of spaced high points producing intermediate valleys between them with the high points separated to include a plurality of screen passages between each high point and the bottom of the adjacent valley, and the high points of one series alternatin with those of the next series in order in the direction of the length of the drum, said drum being so proportioned as to produce a sliding drop suflicient to shatter the more friable parts of the coal but insufficient to shatter the slate and harder lumps of coal.

2. In an apparatus for treating runof-themine soft or bituminous coal, a rotatable cylindrical screen indented from the exterior toward the center or axis to form circum ferential series of spaced high points producing intermediate valleys between them with the indentations of one series alternating with those of the next series in the direction of the length of the cylindrical screen, each pair of adjacent high points of 1. series including a plurality of screen passages between them and the bottom of the intermediate valley and said cylindrical screen being so proportioned as to produce a sliding drop sufficient to shatter the more friable parts of the coal but insuflicient to shatter the slate and harder lumps of coal.

3. In an apparatus for treat-ing soft or bituminous coal containing slate, means for lifting the coal and also causing it to travel in a direction generally perpendicular to the direction of lift and having an inclination in the direction of lift to produce a sliding drop of the coal sufficient to shatter the more friable parts thereof but insufficient to shatter the slate and harder lumps of coal, and provided with means for imparting a tortuous path of travel to the harder lumps of coal, the inclination of said lifting means in the secondnamed direction of travel being slight in proportion to the length of the lifting means to prolong the action upon the harder lumps of coal until the latter are rounded.

at. In an apparatus for treating soft or bituminous coal containing slate, means proportioned to lift the mass of coal and slate to a height to cause the mass to slide upon itself for a sufficient distance to shatter the more friable parts of the coal and less than the distance necessary to shatter the slate and harder lumps of coal, said lifting means including screening means with indentations toward the coal receiving surface with the indentations larger than the perforations through the screening means to cause lateral movements of the harder lumps of coal.

5. In an apparatus for treating soft or bituminous coal containing slate, a rotatable cylindrical screen drum having a diameter producing a sliding angle at a height suflicient to disintegrate friable coal by tumbling and less than that causing disintegration of slate and harder coal and of a length to retain the harder coal until the lumps are rounded, said screen having indentations toward the axis of rotation in alternation one with the other and of a size to each include a plurality of perforations through the screen Walls and to impart lateral movements to the harder lumps of coal in tumbling down the rising side of the screen drum.

6. In an apparatus for treating soft or bituminous coal containing slate, an elongated rotatable screen having the Walls provided with indentations directed toward the axis of rotation and each including a plurality of perforations through the screen, said rotatable screen having interior mild, smooth, agitating baffles inclined in opposit-ion to the direction of rotation, and said screen being so proportioned as to produce a sliding drop sufficient to shatter the more friable parts of the coal but insufficient to shatter the slate and harder lumps of coal.

7. In an apparatus for treating soft or bituminous coal containing slate, an elongated rotatable screen having the Walls provided With indentations directed toward the axis of rotation and each including a plurality of perforations through the screen, said rotatable screen having interior mild, smooth, agitating baffles, said baflies being imperforate throughout and arranged at an acute angle to the inner Wall in opposition to the direction of rotation of the screen.

8. An apparatus for treating soft or bituminous coal containing slate, comprising a rotatable perforated drum declining from the feed and toward the discharge end and having a diameter producing a sliding angle at a height suflicient to disintegrate friable coal by tumbling and less than that causing disintegration of slate and harder coal, said rotatable screen being of a length to retain the harder coal until the lumps are rounded and provided with inwardly directed indentations each including a plurality of perforations through the screen and alternating both circumferentially and longitudinally to impart lateral diversions to the harder lumps of coal tumbling doWn the rising side of the screen.

In testimony, that I claim the foregoing as my own, I have hereto affixed my signature in the presence of tWo Witnesses.

WALLACE SHAW AYRES.

Witnesses:

GEO. H. MARTIN, C. F. LnIoI-L topics at this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. G. 

